


Cult

by abetternameneeded



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Branding, Child Abuse, Cults, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-06
Updated: 2021-01-06
Packaged: 2021-03-16 13:48:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28583016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/abetternameneeded/pseuds/abetternameneeded
Summary: How Tilly thinks the cult murdered her father
Kudos: 3





	Cult

He'd been a good man. An honest member of soceity, sort of. He'd had his issues but he was a good dad. He'd taken care of her, alone. Whoever her mother was, she knew nothing about her.  
And then he'd met someone. And things changed. He trusted someone outside of her. Didn't listen to her when she said she had a bad feeling about the woman he'd befriended. Defintley didn't listen when she protested the meetings. Something was off about them. Something was eery about the way they preached loyalty. But he was a single dad with a young child desperste for companionship in whatever source he could get it. And these were the only people he'd encountered in yesrs that hadn't verbally disparged him for rasining his own child. Of course he fell down the rabbit hole.   
Tilly missed the man she'd known, this one had absolutley lost what made him him. All he cared abkut npw was loyalty to this so called religion. It was a cult.   
But he didn't believe her when she pointed out the flaws in the logic they'd been given. The weird disconnect between the rules they had and what most people did.  
"Just because most people do it, doesn't make it right." She'd given up. She didn't know what to do. She was in a dangerous situation but she loved her father. If she reported the cult he was in, he'd get in trouble too. So she kept quiet. Hoping that it wouldn't go too far, knowing that it would eventually.   
The meetings hammered in the concwpt of loyalty, slowly revaling the darker sides of things once people were in too deep to realize how messed up it was. And then it got really really bad. Tilly tried to plead her way out of it. She could fake swearing her loyalty when it was just words. But this was too far. Beyond too far. People weren't bloody cattle. But her father had agreed to this. And she was a child. A child that coulsn't really fight, but coukd try.   
"Papa, you know this is wrong!" she was struggling against a women that was holding her back as tears fell.   
.."You have to!" Another women told her as she was heating up a metal rod with the symbol of the cult at the end of it.  
"Let me talk to her," he'd offered. "It'll only hurt for a minute. Do you want me to go first?"  
She didn't want ro see him in pain either! How could he do this? How could he be so blind? This wasn't good! This wasn't safe! But they wanted loyalty and they knew words could be faked. But no one would go through the pain of this if they didn't mean it.   
"No!" Tilly kicked at the woman, who still managed to hold her back as her father went through with the biggest mistske lf his life. She cried as she heard his screams which to hjs credit susbsided very quickly. 

"I can hold your hand while you do it," he offered. She wasn't going thrlugh with this willingly. They'd have to make her! Which they did. It hurt so much. She couldn't believe the omly person that had ever truly understood her had made her do this  
. But she didn't get to hold onto her betrayal very long. A few days later the burn on his wrist had gotten infected. He died within hours. And she started going from home to home. Sometimes the bran om her wrist making people think she was dangerous and kicking her out within hours. It'd hurt enlugh physcialy but people associating her with the people that had destroyed and murdered her father hurt even more.


End file.
